Small boats

Tuesday

Oscar Edmondson

Britain can learn from France on migration

12 min listen

It’s the big day for Starmer’s one-in, one-out migrant deal with France. The scheme, which was agreed during the state visit last month, comes into effect today – but Yvette Cooper and other figures in Whitehall remain suspiciously evasive when it comes to putting a number on returns to France. Immigration is, of course, the problem of highest salience across the country, and made even more pressing by recent riots at migrant hotels, giving far-right opposition parties plenty of ammunition. Polling shows that 40 per cent of Reform supporters would consider voting for Labour next time if the number of small boat arrivals fell. So, will it work? Will it

Thursday

James Heale

Confessions of a new intake Labour MP: ‘We’re not here to make friends’

16 min listen

Keir Starmer has struck again. Compounding his reputation as a ruthless operator – like Michael Corleone – he is settling all family business by removing the whip from a number of troublemaking MPs, including Neil Duncan Jordan, Chris Hinchcliff, Brian Leishman and Rachel Maskell. This comes after each led respective revolts on winter fuel, planning reform, Grangemouth and the welfare changes. Rosena Allin-Khan, Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Mohammed Yasin have all lost their trade envoy roles too. Many of the MPs who have been cast adrift are from the new intake, and so today we are joined on the podcast by Mike Tapp, MP for Dover and Deal, to give his

Thursday

Maggie Fergusson

It’s trust in English kindness that keeps the migrants coming

Halfway through The Shawshank Redemption, Andy and Red, sitting in their filthy prison yard, discuss hope. Red thinks it’s a dangerous thing, which can lead to despair if not fulfilled. But Andy insists on hoping for freedom, and his hope is finally rewarded. The astonishing thing about the migrants and refugees Horatio Clare meets in this short, powerful book – Sudanese, Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians, Ethiopians, Pakistanis, Moroccans, Syrians and Yemenis in Dover, Calais, Falmouth and Portland – is that, despite being some of the most helpless and vulnerable people in the world, most have not lost hope. In Calais’s fenced and guarded camps, the soundtrack is laughter. Clare wants to

Tuesday

Patrick O’Flynn

Sunak could learn from David Cameron

Our naturally centrist and establishment-minded Conservative prime minister trails Labour badly in the polls even though the electorate is at best lukewarm about the leader of the opposition. Former Tory voters are drifting away, outraged about a perceived abandonment of sound Conservative principles and European interference in the immigration system. Economic austerity may have convinced financial markets that the PM is serious about rebuilding the battered public finances, but the tax rises and spending restraint involved are making popularity a stranger to him. With the Commons in Christmas recess, a threat is growing on the Conservative right flank which will make the next election impossible to win unless it is

Tuesday

Stephen Daisley

We shouldn’t accept the Channel crossings

Yesterday, 1,295 people arrived in the UK by crossing the Channel in small boats. That is the highest daily total since current records began being kept in 2018. More than 6,000 people entered the country this way in the first three weeks of August and more than 22,500 in the first eight months of the year. That is almost double the numbers seen at this point last year. From a video of the latest arrivals, there seem to be quite a number of young, fit, unaccompanied men. As an immigration liberal – someone who believes in safe, sustainable, legal immigration – it continues to baffle me that my fellow liberals